Chaos Theory
by Fiercest
Summary: Anthology. #7: Itachi is very, very frightened.
1. Ashes

**Title : **Red Apple Ashes

**Authoress : **Fiercy

**Note: **Its 1:25 in the morning. So sue me.

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There is a man.

He is a man who can see a clear path; who can tell the subtle differences between right and wrong and who doesn't falter on his righteous path to retribution.

This man knows _exactly_ who he is.

He is a genius.

He is brave.

He is the epitome of cold detachment.

This man can no longer see in color.

_[he doesn't let himself. For if his screening, all seeing eyes slip their focus and in like cracks in a window filters the sunlight and colors dancing upon the warm beams he will think of things that he has no business remembering._

_He will think of the red of apples. The sweetest grown in the land of fire._

_And he will think of the warmth, the brightness. He will recall the hue of his home, the color of friendship. He will think of the blur of blue that meant safety, the oranges and yellows of companionship, the pinks and greens of childish maybes._

_And he will remember.]_

This man goes by no name any longer. What is the point? What's the use? Who has the time for some such nonsense as pleasantries and formalities?

No one like him.

This man has been chasing the coattails of his past.

This man has no flaws.

_[not anymore._

_Once upon a time this man had lived. Or been alive. Whether there is a difference is still unclear._

_Either way, you need a semblance of humanity to retain life. That left him long ago.]_

His name had once been Uchiha Sasuke. He is a soulless corpse, stalking the earth. Seeing only black and white, ignoring the color seeping into his peripherals.

Until his hands are stained in red and the colors return with vengeance.


	2. Imminent

**Title: **Imminent

**Author: **Sierra

**Note: **I really think they're riding the short bus in this -shrugs- I'm just gonna be posting some really short little drabbles here every once in as while ;)

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He will pretend that she isn't there standing between them, once again holding back the imminent brawl.

He will pretend that she is safe at home in her bed.

He will pretend that she is still alive.

He will pretend that her memory isn't the only thing stopping them from killing each other.

In an era of unprecedented peace he stands twenty years following his betrayal in front of, not the boy he had left behind, but a man; taller than he, broad shouldered and eyes as hard as diamonds. This person is someone he never knew existed. This person is someone he never has and never will care to know.

He, unlike his counterpart has not changed since their last encounter.

They stand not together, always apart, not in mourning but in acknowledgment of the empty space between them, of the woman that once balanced and kept them, of the one thing left that they had in common.

They both knew that she was supposed to be there.

But life sucks, and as unfair as it was... She wasn't ever going to stand between them again.

This was the Something that neither of them would ever, could ever, comprehend.

And because they don't know each other anymore, they part at the stone. For there is nothing left to be said.


	3. Twelve

**A/N: Do my stories all sound like this? …I feel like I've written this before.**

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Twelve

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_The line we meet at is the beginning of life._

-My friend Brit.

They made it.

It's odd to think of a beginning as a finish line; especially when the reception is a gaggle of corpses.

Their finale; the ending of an era… They feel a hundred years old, though the group of twelve _[twelve]_ can't be far from their teenaged years; another ending.

A platoon; four times three. Four three man squads with members who slip seamlessly between the movements of their peers. This is a secret weapon that their village never knew they had. A team of such size, whose talents complement each other and whose lives are so so valued by the others.

They are a force.

Protectors in their own right, they stand together.

There are onlookers; those who have aged and are no longer so spry. They reminisce of their own victories and failures and the people who stood by them once; as well as the man whose rank they had not yet filled.

The Kage and the teachers, the trainers of heroes looked on in pride. As the failures, the rookies who weren't supposed to make it: the class of geniuses with too much pride for their own good, the one with the books marts but no follow through, with the delinquents and the hopeless. The ones so perfectly mediocre.

Those were the people who became the greats, who grew and changed because they found each other.

They are the proof that the world changes.

If you shake things up enough.


	4. Grow

**Title:** Grow**  
Author: **Fiercy**  
Summary: **Perhaps one at last, will be left to grow in peace. Gen fic.**  
52 Flavours: Prompt #11 Perhaps one at last will be left to grow in peace.**

**Note: **Ole ole ole oleeee... Right. No one here will get that joke. WARNING this fic has not been tested for AIDS. BUT SOME MIGHT GET THAT ONE! --- :D

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I am the only one left standing.

This shocks me to say the least, considering the life I have lived and the risks I have taken.

Of the 49 shinobi and kunoichi alike who took the chunin exams that year, 32 survived to see their next birthday. Twenty, to ascend the rank to jounin and survive longer than a mission. Soon they were wittled down to 16.

And then we were twelve.

It was a serendipitous miracle that we, twelve children, now adults happened to all be konoha nin that had spent the years since that fateful milestone _together_. We were a team of elite. The most gifted of our time.

But even we reached our expiration dates.

The first of us to go didn't exactly die, per say. She abandoned the rest of us before we could abandon her too, or more specifically before _they_ could. And like her fearsome and fearful teacher before her Haruno Sakura took the cowards way out and traveled the world.

The next to go were Shino and Chouji. Skewered on the tip of the same sword.

Lee was next. In the Second Ninja War he opened the final gate and his heart, which beat so strongly in his chest before, could find the strength no longer. And there was no one left to heal his ailing.

Next to die had been Ino. She died in childbirth, bringing her first and only child into the world. Leaving Shikamaru to later lose his life to lung cancer.

Hinata died on a seduction mission. Her henge did not hold.

Tenten and Neji left on a reconnaissance mission, the details unclear. They never returned.

Sakura returned then, it was Ino's daughter who went searching for her, reminding her of not her own parents but of another blond she'd left behind in her memories long ago. The last sight her eyes ever saw was that of her boys. The three people she loved more than anything in the world, reuniting. Before Kabuto stabbed her in the back.

Sasuke committed suicide. There was no funeral for the forsaken.

Last year it was Naruto who died.

We're old, we've lived our lives and it's almost pathetic that we were so close yet so far. If things had been just a little different we probably could have all reached ripe old ages.

But these were standard issue deaths for shinobi. I've come to accept it with time.

What's amazing is that Naruto was not assassinated, sick, or even strained.

He had four children, ten grandchildren and a great grand-kid on the way.

He died of old age.

I will too someday. Probably soon.

But I will die knowing that I won…in a way.

I am the last of the Rookie Nine. I am the last one standing.

I am Inuzuka Kiba. And I can die, free to laugh my ass off at the morons when I see them again.


	5. Contrary

**A/N: Nyuuur, exams. Why must I do this to myself?**

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Contrary to Popular Belief

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Contrary to popular belief, they do in fact like each other.

Sometimes Sarutobi thinks that they are three facets of one soul; the way their movements, fluid and sleek, sync. Those three teenagers were the hope for future and possibility. They are his greatest legacy.

Sometimes he really believes that the three of them are the same person.

-But most of the time he doesn't.

They are just so different, except and especially when they move. Orochimaru is a slithering, lightning quick grace; sinister and smooth. Jiraiya is a subdued typhoon, hiding behind a mask of aloofness not unlike his own. Tsunade is an incomparable and incomprehensible force, not one which anyone would wish to reckon with. In action, it is like a dance to see them fight; a well timed choreography of give and take between the first of many generations of legends.

A new classification had been invented for Team 1; for Team Sarutobi.

And he knew that it was the beginning of a new era for the ninja world. Perhaps, with them as its leaders.

The leaders of a new generation of legends in the making.

**A/N: Oh the IRONY.**


	6. Precipice

**Title: **Precipice

**Pairings/Characters: **Kakashi, Naruto, Sasuke/Sakura.

**Theme: **Another Team 7 fic ^^

**Summary: **In which there is nothing (and everything) to forgive.

**Note: **I am such a sap.

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Sometimes, through the cracks in the armor, through the chain mail linked and protective of their hearts, they feel the wounds from the blows that slip through the gaps.

There comes a time when everyone must learn that there are instances when solitude just isn't enough anymore.

Sometimes all you need to bridge the gap between here and there, you and them and hearts is-

Briefly, in moments so subtle and quiet, in the space entre past and future, Kakashi finds himself in the present. Everything is suddenly still then. There is nothing but the now, the wants and the hurts of the present. There are no plans, no repercussions, no memories or movement. He is pulled under by the shear force of _if_ and _maybe_.

Kakashi is duty bound and proud. Right now. But he is also in mourning.

Sometimes all you need to bridge the gap is remember to stop.

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There are times when Naruto stumbles. He trips on the messy things that litter the floor of his life and sometimes these piles of metaphorical crap are things he didn't even see coming.

Naruto trips, but he refuses to fall. He stumbles as his legs tumble out from under him. There are times when he stands straight and walks tall; he pretends that there was never a doubt. Other times, _they_ are the ones who catch him.

And there is so much love that is unspoken in that simple gesture, in the act of protecting.

Sometimes, he learns, all you need to bridge the gap is let people catch you.

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There is a time and place for obstinate bravery and heroism. War is not it.

Sakura has learned that when you go out on a limb, when you play the knight, you fail.

You lose.

She knows as well as the next broken, shattered person (ninja) that it's useless to try and justify. Because it doesn't really matter. There's no use in trying to change the fact that you just took a life. You. No one else.

You are the bad guy.

The monster that you thought you were fighting against.

(But that makes her wonder, what is she fighting then?)

But still she fights harder. She speaks no a syllable, and hacks and slashes and she's somewhere inside her own head screaming.

Because they're facing off again. She still loves him so desperately, it hurts so much to know that they're not quite on the same side anymore.

She is never going to have to watch his back again.

There aren't enough tears in the world to encompass and personify this moment's pain. And so, she doesn't cry.

She loves him, Sasuke, and she's so so tired.

Her fists drop. She stops fighting.

Sometimes, all you need to do to bridge the gap is put the knife down.

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His whole life, the only constant companion, as old as he is his own crippling anger.

Sasuke has always found a reason to hate the world and fate. He hated what a collaboration of the two had done to him.

With reason, some might argue.

He went from anger at his father for overlooking him, to anger at his brother for shattering and killing and the pain. He was angry at Naruto for being stronger, at Orochimaru for holding him back, then finally the whole damn village. A place he once called his home. And it hurts him, but he couldn't, even then, make himself swear vengeance against them.

Now, he wants to be angry at her. Because all is said and done, he'd watched her village burn to the ground, he'd killed her kage, and still she refused to pick up her fists, swing that ridiculous, ostentatious axe.

Why the hell wouldn't she fight him?

She steps close and closer. Sakura isnt crying. He doesn't understand and his world seems to tip on its axis.

And he's just so damn _angry_ all the _time_.

She bares her neck, tilting her head back so that the locks of her hair brush the apex of her shoulder blades. She's so close that he can see the Irish ring around her irises. The flat of his blade presses against her throat, as if to hold her off from making contact.

He calls her stupid and annoying and makes a cutting, would-be-eviscerating remark about putting her life in jeopardy, in an _enemy's_ hands. He sheathes his sword, says she's not worth the kill and this is when the tears come. But these are happy tears, and after all these years he can still recognize the difference.

She must find what she was looking for in his face, because suddenly she's tackling him in a hug.

He's angry at her, the world. And no doubt in some way, she hates him for it. Because how could she not?

Somewhere in between her angry ranting and the kiss she presses to his forehead Naruto's arms encircle them both in a bruising, crushing embrace and Kakashi laughs somewhere in the background of his world.

He doesn't apologize, but he will.

Because he has spent his entire life being angry.

And because sometimes, all you need to bridge that final precipice is the act of forgiving others.

And maybe even forgive yourself.

**A/N: Some parts I like, others I really hate. All and all I don't think it was my best work. Disjointed like all my pieces yes, but does it flow?**

**Let me know what you guys think!**

**~Sierra**


	7. Stalker

The Stalker

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A chill ran through Itachi's body like a wave of cold water washing over him. His hands were suddenly clammy, his breath came quick and his heart thumped in his chest like a base drum. He had the sudden feeling of being followed.

The twelve year old spun around to look over his shoulder, sure it was Anko again, but found nothing and detected no fluctuating chakra. He kept walking down the eerily silent street then turned into a back alley in an attempt to evade whatever predator was stalking him.

"You...." an undistinguishable voice hissed from behind.

Itachi spun around again. There was no one there.

He kept walking.

"It's all your fault." the same voice whispered yet again.

He turned. He was still alone.

And so in continued for some while until finally, Itachi Uchiha's mind snapped like a dry and brittle twig. "What the hell do you want from me!? Stop freaking _tormenting_ me!!!" He cried to the heavens.

"You," the voice was more recognizable as high pitched. The unmistakable voice of a child. He was strongly reminded of the horror movie Renaii had made him watch last week.

He whirled around.

This time there was someone there. Someone he knew well.

Sasuke stood there, bangs handing in his face, penetrating eyes staring at him with murderous intent.

"You killed Mr. Bear. You will pay."

"... I thought his name was pooky."

**A/N: A product of the Jew, Sue, Loon and Spoon Msn Convo Chronicles!**


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